This has been a year of profound changes for The Broker Forum. Following our 2009 strategy that was centered around making TBF more visible on major Search engines world wide, 2010 saw TBF put mechanisms increasing the quality of our members’ search experience, as well as, increasing the safety of the transaction experience.
Increasing the Quality of the Search experience:Tightening our ISCP Program- The pillar around which The Broker Forum has always articulated its actions has always been in our In Stock Certified Program. This year, we revamped our ISCP program with a fully staffed QA team, as well as, the introduction of automated ISCP spot checks. These checks have been tightened to include pictures of parts, quantity, date code, and company identification. Since January 1 2010, well over 1000 ISCP stock checks were performed, and over 40 companies saw their ISCP tag disabled.
Great uptake on our moderator function: This year, TBF introduced a new moderator function, enabling experienced members to flag suspicious inventory as they perform online searches. Since the launch of this program in Q2, our 75 Moderators have performed over 300 moderations of suspicious inventory.
Increasing the safety of the transaction experience:Never has international trade been fraught with risk as it is today. Buyers and vendors from all corners of the earth have converged on the Internet and trading has boomed, and so the instances of counterfeiting. While Escrow services help to reduce transaction risks, The Broker Forum has been tracking members who have been involved in counterfeit issues or other reprehensible activities in order to determine patterns of behavior and react accordingly. Since July 1 2010, The Broker Forum has locked out or terminated the membership of over 20 different companies, and an additional 30 are currently under investigation.
Overall: The Broker Forum is happy to report that 2010 growth has been steady, both in terms of members and usage per member. Challenges remain and,
- We look forward to our vendors being transparent regarding posted information, helping our buyers make fast and efficient decisions.
- We need all members to remain vigilant and report behaviour that may be damageable to the community.
As our industry prepares for the New Year, we at The Broker Forum are hard at work planning and testing the next generation of tools to help our members achieve long term sustainable success.
From all of us at The Broker Forum, we wish to extend our warmest wishes to all during the holidays .
